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Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears (/sɪərz/ SEERZ), is an American chain of department stores and online retailer. The company was founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald. The company began as a mail-order catalog company and opened its first retail locations in 1925. Through the 1980s, Sears was the largest retailer in the United States.
In 2005, Eddie Lampert took control of the company through Kmart. The merger resulted in Sears Holdings. Sears' parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. After the bankruptcy, Transformco focuses on managing and selling the remaining real estate assets.
From 2705 stores at its peak in 2011, only 5 stores are still open as of 2025.
Richard Warren Sears was born in 1863 in Stewartville, Minnesota, to a wealthy family which moved to nearby Spring Valley. In 1879, his father died shortly after losing the family fortune in a speculative stock deal. Sears moved across the state to work as a railroad station agent in North Redwood, then Minneapolis.
While he was in North Redwood, a jeweler refused delivery on a shipment of watches. Sears purchased them and sold them at a low price to the station agents, making a profit. He started a mail-order watch business in Minneapolis in 1886, calling it the R.W. Sears Watch Company. That year, he met Alvah Curtis Roebuck, a watch repairman. In 1887, Sears and Roebuck relocated the business to Chicago, and the company published Richard Sears's first mail-order catalog, offering watches, diamonds, and jewelry.
In 1889, Sears sold his business for $100,000 ($3.2 million in 2024 dollars) and relocated to Iowa, planning to be a rural banker. He returned to Chicago in 1892 and established a new mail-order firm, again selling watches and jewelry, with Roebuck as his partner, operating as the A. C. Roebuck watch company. On September 16, 1893, they renamed the company Sears, Roebuck, and Co. and began to diversify the product lines offered in their catalogs.
Before the Sears catalog, farmers near small rural towns usually purchased supplies, often at high prices and on credit, from local general stores with narrow selections of goods. Prices were negotiated and relied on the storekeeper's estimate of a customer's creditworthiness. This also had the effect of helping black farmers during the Jim Crow Law era, when storekeepers may not make them the same offers. Sears built an opposite business model by offering in their catalogs a larger selection of products at published prices.[citation needed]
By 1894, the Sears catalog had grown to 322 pages, including many new items, such as sewing machines, bicycles, sporting goods and automobiles (later produced, from 1905 to 1915, by Lincoln Motor Car Works of Chicago [no relation to the current Ford line]). By 1895, the company was producing a 532-page catalog. Sales were over $400,000 ($12 million in 2024 dollars) in 1893 and over $750,000 ($25 million in 2024 dollars) two years later. By 1896, dolls, stoves, and groceries were added to the catalog.
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Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears (/sɪərz/ SEERZ), is an American chain of department stores and online retailer. The company was founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald. The company began as a mail-order catalog company and opened its first retail locations in 1925. Through the 1980s, Sears was the largest retailer in the United States.
In 2005, Eddie Lampert took control of the company through Kmart. The merger resulted in Sears Holdings. Sears' parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. After the bankruptcy, Transformco focuses on managing and selling the remaining real estate assets.
From 2705 stores at its peak in 2011, only 5 stores are still open as of 2025.
Richard Warren Sears was born in 1863 in Stewartville, Minnesota, to a wealthy family which moved to nearby Spring Valley. In 1879, his father died shortly after losing the family fortune in a speculative stock deal. Sears moved across the state to work as a railroad station agent in North Redwood, then Minneapolis.
While he was in North Redwood, a jeweler refused delivery on a shipment of watches. Sears purchased them and sold them at a low price to the station agents, making a profit. He started a mail-order watch business in Minneapolis in 1886, calling it the R.W. Sears Watch Company. That year, he met Alvah Curtis Roebuck, a watch repairman. In 1887, Sears and Roebuck relocated the business to Chicago, and the company published Richard Sears's first mail-order catalog, offering watches, diamonds, and jewelry.
In 1889, Sears sold his business for $100,000 ($3.2 million in 2024 dollars) and relocated to Iowa, planning to be a rural banker. He returned to Chicago in 1892 and established a new mail-order firm, again selling watches and jewelry, with Roebuck as his partner, operating as the A. C. Roebuck watch company. On September 16, 1893, they renamed the company Sears, Roebuck, and Co. and began to diversify the product lines offered in their catalogs.
Before the Sears catalog, farmers near small rural towns usually purchased supplies, often at high prices and on credit, from local general stores with narrow selections of goods. Prices were negotiated and relied on the storekeeper's estimate of a customer's creditworthiness. This also had the effect of helping black farmers during the Jim Crow Law era, when storekeepers may not make them the same offers. Sears built an opposite business model by offering in their catalogs a larger selection of products at published prices.[citation needed]
By 1894, the Sears catalog had grown to 322 pages, including many new items, such as sewing machines, bicycles, sporting goods and automobiles (later produced, from 1905 to 1915, by Lincoln Motor Car Works of Chicago [no relation to the current Ford line]). By 1895, the company was producing a 532-page catalog. Sales were over $400,000 ($12 million in 2024 dollars) in 1893 and over $750,000 ($25 million in 2024 dollars) two years later. By 1896, dolls, stoves, and groceries were added to the catalog.
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